Search Tickets

Snowmageddon with CBMR Athlete Rob Dickinson

Whoever started the hashtag #burythebutte surely had no idea how prophetic it would become.

The Butte hath been buried.

Work. Ski. Shovel. Sleep. Repeat. This is my life lately, and I am tired and sore and happy beyond words.

I have lived in snow country of some sort my whole life, and nearly every vacation I have been on of my own doing has been to some other snowy locale. At 13 I slept out in a tent in my parents’ backyard in the Blizzard of ’93 in the Northeast; I’ve been in Haines, Alaska in all-time pow; I’ve had my Heli grounded by snow in Golden, BC, and I’ve watched snow stack up in legendary proportions in Steamboat.

Still, I have never, ever, ever, seen snow the likes of which that has and is currently still falling in my hometown of Crested Butte. As I type this, I am still calming down from a white-knuckle drive home in full-on blizzard, and I am still buzzing from the other day when I skied while it snowed 2” per hour all day. We have received over 90” from this storm with another 24” on the docket, and it’s snowing as hard as ever. The cannon has clearly been pointed at us.

As for this storm’s effect on our beloved ski resort – well I don’t think I am stretching by saying that things are as good as or better than they have ever been. While winter started late this year, most of our early storms have come in on the wet side, and have pasted up our legendary steeps with the most durable snow base I have ever seen out there. This storm has been no exception – a base-builder, and I have heard one veteran Ski Patroller who has run routes on the North Face for 25 years say that this is the best snowpack that has ever been back there! Even our own local ski-celeb, Wendy Fisher said today that she’d skied a line on the mountain that she’d never skied before. Now that’s sayin’ something… So if you see Wendy out there, be sure to follow her to this newfound stash!

I, myself have been dabbling in some lines that I’ve never seen in play during my 9 winters spent scouring every nook and cranny I can on this ski resort. I have never seen anything like it.

What’s more: In the wake of this legendary and borderline catastrophic snowstorm, our hard-working ski patrol is still in the process of doing their best to open the legendary terrain of the Frontside (Banana, Funnel, Peel, Flatiron, etc.), Spellbound and Phoenix Bowls, and Third Bowl. There’s a litter of famed extreme terrain, stacked with historic amounts of snow, that hasn’t seen tracks yet, just waiting for my, and your, best day ever. So there’s more in the coming days.

The special thing about powder skiing, is when it’s here you don’t know if it will ever be this good again. You need to get it when it’s good. Well it’s great. So if you’re already here, get it while you can, and if you’re reading this from afar, GET HERE NOW!